On the Brink

Things are looking up at the H house!

For starters, our son, A, has finally started completing his work at school. Much to the delight and surprise of his teacher, I might add. I'm not entirely sure she believed me when I told her he could read, spell, and write because A has flat-out refused to do most of his work this year.

In the last month or so, he has started filling out his writing sheets, doing his addition and subtraction, and been generally behaving himself in the classroom. Yay! This is a relief not only for his teacher, but also for me and Z. Knowing your son can do things, but having a stubborn child who refuses to do things for anyone but mom and dad is not a good combination when there are special needs in the mix. The teacher can only assess his abilities on her observations and experiences, not what A does when he's at home.

We're still having an issue with how they do the testing, as a good portion of it is verbal and our son is NOT overly verbal. He has made great strides, and can hold mini-conversations with Z and I, and a few other close friends, but on an over-all scale he is nowhere close to his peers. A's mini-conversations tend to be sentence fragments, rather than entire grammatically correct sentences, but we understand what he's trying to convey and are just glad he's making the effort. We can tell that it takes an enormous amount of concentration and energy to do what he is able to do, and as long as he's doing his best (and not being a lazy butt) we're fine with that.

Our son is, by the way, a lazy butt if he thinks he can get away with it -- he'll try to see if he can get out of doing whatever someone requests by ignoring them, or starting to stim while watching them out of the corner of his eye. If you're firm with him, and tell him to do whatever it is again, he'll stop stimming, sigh, and then actually do what he was asked to do. The key is knowing when A is trying to get out of doing something, and when he's genuinely stimming or off in his own world. The people that have figured the differences out, understandably, are the ones who spend the most time with him -- and since A is mainstreamed in a "normal" kindergarten classroom, his teacher's attention is divided between A and the other 17 kids in the class. As the year has progressed, she's figuring out A's cues.

In other news, our son has worn regular cotton undies for two days straight without any incident. We still have to prompt him, as he rarely volunteers to go to the bathroom on his own, but he has done a terrific job keeping his pants clean and dry. Of course, he also hasn't pooped in two days, so the streaking has not been an issue.

Our son, like a lot of autistic children, has some muscular weaknesses throughout his body. In addition to his fine-motor skills in his hands, he also lacks some core strength and bowel strength. In our research and conversations with other parents of autistic children, a lot of auties have issues with constipation and impaction. We have to make sure we feed A lots of foods that "make him go", such as sweet potatoes, spinach, and grapes, and try to avoid foods that stop you up, such as bananas, apples and apple juice, and cheese or yogurt. We also have to periodically give him an oral laxative and insert suppositories. If these don't work, then we have to do an old-fashioned enema.

The upside is, these things do what they're supposed to and things get moved on through. The downside is, if we don't do these things, he gets impacted and that means a trip to the hospital. AND another downside is, the more we have to resort to these measures, the less his bowels will do the work on their own; they become dependent on the laxatives and enemas.

"Poop" is a regular topic of conversation around here. Just keepin' it real, this is some of what we deal with on a daily basis.

On the non-crappy side of things, I started a new job this week! Fate had a conversation with irony and arranged this one for me: I was eligible for all sorts of state and federal assistance programs until I started my new job, and now I help people with their applications for those same programs. I have been blessed with the opportunity to help people who are -- literally -- where I just was, last week.

I know (some of) what they're going through, so I think I'm really going to enjoy parts of this job. Everyone has a unique story, and I know what a blessing and relief it is when your family is taken care of. The parts I won't enjoy are in there, too, as there are some clients who have some....interesting philosophies...regarding entitlement issues and how to improve one's financial position, and I am going to have to tell some people "no" and deal with the fall-out. Luckily for me, I am not making the final decision on the eligibility issues, so I don't have to sweat or fret about making the right or wrong decision, I just have to let them know what the decision is. It won't help me when I have to tell someone I would love to help "no", though.

I'm going to have to learn how to emotionally distance myself from our clients, or I'm going to have a lot of heartbreak and bad days. This is not to say I can't be compassionate or caring, those qualities must be shown to everyone to provide dignity and respect to the client. I just can't cry every time I have to turn someone away who is in desperate need. And I also can't get mad or too frustrated if I get a client who is obviously lying and trying to pull a fast one, like yesterday.

There will be a learning curve, but I'm glad to both have a job, and have a job where I can help people at a time when they need it most.